Two Way Street
by Emily3
Summary: Love is a two way street. Coincidentally, lack of love often goes both ways as well. HAIRSPRAY: superficial LinkAmber, LinkTracy, and AmberDuane.


A/N: This story takes place after Tracy has been added to the Council, but before Link stands up for her in detention. And as for the subject matter: sadly, I know from experience what it's like to be so totally uninterested in the person you're kissing that your brain starts to say things like, "I wonder what ever _did _happen to that other argyle sock?" while you have someone else's tongue in your mouth.

Also, since I wasn't sure of the name of the black boy Amber checks out at the end of the film, I have named him Duane. Yay.

* * *

**Amber**

Kissing Link Larkin was supposed to be exciting. Which it was, Amber reminded herself from her current position on top of the seventeen-year-old boy in question. Sort of. There was no end to the jealous glares and catty remarks she got from various Link groupies or the girls around school, and she still got a secret thrill whenever she introduced him as 'my boyfriend, Link Larkin'. Hell, she'd rubbed going steady with Link in Shelley's face so many times it was a wonder they didn't snarl at each other on air more often.

It was just that the actual _act_ of kissing Link… well. Sort of fell short.

He was good-looking, of course; that wasn't the problem. Oh, no; with his perfectly sculpted black hair and keen blue eyes, he was the hunk around town that all the girls were after. In one of the rare instances of Amber's life, appearance wasn't the problem: it was the lack of anything… _real_ between the two of them.

She realized abruptly that nothing of the past few minutes' worth of making out on her living room sofa had made any impression whatsoever. She wrenched herself back to the moment, back to awkwardly propping herself up on her elbows so that Link couldn't feel her full weight on top of him. Her arms had begun to get pins and needles. She stuck her tongue a little farther into his mouth for good measure, just in case he had noticed her lack of interest.

She was glad that peoples' eyes were supposed to be closed for this sort of thing. She tried to cling to the present – but after a couple minutes of resolute lip-rubbing and tongue-slipping, her mind began to drift again.

The problem was that the whole thing was rather… engineered. Like those controlled setting experiments they did in biology – where the environment and all of the variables came pre-prepared, and the object of the experiment was lead toward one inevitable conclusion. Nothing came as spontaneous or unexpected; she had greased the pan of their courtship well in advance.

She had commented idly to her mother that there was a cute boy in the Council. Days later, an out-of-the-blue dancing partner re-assignment had placed her and Link together. When she decided that she wanted a boyfriend, she had asked Link if he wanted to stay after taping for an hour of wholly unnecessary rehearsal time, just the two of them. She gave him plenty of opportunities to ask her on a date.

Link had walked through all of her hoops without realizing. Even now, there was no genuine spontaneity: it was certainly no coincidence that he had taken her home from their drive-in date to an empty house. Arranging times and places for them to cop a feel was beginning to feel like a chore.

The two of them wouldn't be lasting much longer, she knew – and as long as it was on her terms, that was just fine.

Amber Von Tussle was very, very good at getting what she wanted. The issues arose when she didn't actually know what she wanted in the first place.

A flash memory of coffee-dark skin shot through her mind, and her fingers unconsciously jammed into Link's stiff hair and tugged. He made a vaguely protesting sound and she reminded herself where she was.

That boy. That… that Negro boy from school, the one who was always looking at her. Every once and a while, in the middle of making out with Link, his face would inexplicably pop into her mind. Full lips, high brow, and deep brown eyes… a tiny noise of enjoyment escaped from the back of her throat.

The way he looked at her didn't make her feel superior or impressive, like everybody else's looks did. It made her feel… red-faced and anxious and unsure of what to do with her hands. She'd determined that his name was Duane after a series of long eavesdropping sessions in the school's cafeteria, but didn't know what she was supposed to do with the information now she had it.

Realistically, she could never have the Negro boy: not only would her mother completely wig out, but she would also lose her social status at school in two seconds flat. No, she could never have him.

At least, not publicly.

She grinned against Link's slack, zeal-less lips. Amber Von Tussle was very, very good at getting what she wanted – _especially_ when she knew exactly what that was.

Link let out another grumble of protest and pushed her gently away by the shoulders.

"I should go," he said firmly, extracting himself from her. She let him go, nonplussed. "My dad'll be wonderin' where I am."

She walked him to the door, taking the opportunity to look at him as he took his blue jacket off of the coat hook and pulled it on. His hair was still intact even after half an hour's lying on a couch with her fingers in his hair.

He opened the door – then caught himself, turned, and gave her a final peck on the lips. "Night, darlin'."

"Goodnight, Link." She didn't wait until he'd reached his Cadillac before she closed the door.

* * *

**Link**

Link Larkin was lying on his back with an armful of thin, dainty, _willing_ teenage girl reclining on top of him. There was no fear of parental intrusion; her mother was declared out for the evening, leaving them free to their own activities. They had been swapping spit for the past ten minutes now. He was virtually living the dream of every post-pubescent boy in Baltimore.

And all he could think of was the way Tracy Turnblad had looked when she was dancing earlier today.

It wasn't fair, he thought angrily, that she could have such an affect on him. He had Amber, the queen of the Corny Collins show and the wet dream of half the high school's male population. She was his to touch, and hold, and kiss (here her tongue jabbed at his a little harder as if to remind him); and yet somehow all of that did less for him than seeing a flash of Tracy's leg when her skirt got caught in the breeze of a spin.

Definitely not fair.

Seeing her bawdy dance in detention had been like opening an enormous can of worms. He had never really noticed larger girls before that, substantial girls with curves and softness. It had been like releasing a tidal wave of inappropriate thoughts about her, and now that they'd started they couldn't be stopped. Her hips, her gentle brown eyes, her lips… god, her lips.

For a second, he let himself imagine what it would be like to kiss her. He pulled his mind even farther away from the persistent mash of Amber's lips against his; with Tracy, it would be different. He'd tilt her chin up, make her look him right in the eye. He'd rest a hand on her shoulder and move it back and forth so as to feel how soft the skin there was. He'd bend down – she was quite a bit shorter than him – and press his lips against hers gently, tenderly. The Tracy in his mind shivered; his corporeal self mimicked her actions.

He fervently pulled Amber tighter into him, relishing for the first time the feel of two mouths pressed together. He wanted her closer, wanted to feel a body pressed against his no matter how wrong that choice of body may have been.

Amber let out a confused noise at his suddenly renewed affections, and he let his grip on her slacken back into comfortable apathy. It was nowhere near the same as in the fantasy, no matter how tightly he kept his eyes shut.

What was really remarkable about Tracy, he reflected, was that for the first time, he was admiring a girl both for how she looked _and_ how she acted. He's had plenty of girlfriends in the past – including, uncomfortably enough, one or two of the Council members – and he has never had respected any of them as people. They were warm bodies and arm candy, that was all. He didn't think that his father, the man whose womanizing ways had finally driven his mother away when he was thirteen, had provided a very good example on that count.

But this was different. He could see the way Tracy treated Seaweed and the rest of the Negro Day Council, could see how earnest she was in her desire to dance and sing her heart out. He wanted her more because of it.

Frankly, it frightened him a little.

Amber's fingers unexpectedly jammed into his hairspray-stiffened hair. He grumbled in response to the unwanted intrusion; it brought him back to a world where he was still very much going steady with the daughter of the woman who controlled his career. He felt a flash of hot irritation towards her, for the cruel things she said and the snide way she acted – but mostly and most irrationally, for not being Tracy.

Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to get out of the dark, empty house and away from its catty occupant. He made what he hoped to be a convincing 'alas, alack that we should part' noise and pushed her up and away from him. Their mouths came apart with a slightly wet popping sound, and he could see his spit on her lips.

It made him want to leave even more.

"I should go," he said, shimmying out from underneath her unsubstantial weight. "My dad'll be wonderin' where I am."

He shot to the door and threw his jacket on, barely registering that she had followed him until he opened the door to leave. A peck on the lips and a "Night, darlin'" were all he could muster before he shuffled out the door toward his car.

If she said anything back to him as he walked away, he didn't hear it.


End file.
